Flagging attendance at collegiate club

[Dan H]

Anyone have good ideas to revive severely flagging attendance in beginners' fencing classes at a collegiate club? I'm affiliated with a middling-sized (5000ish undergrads) American university with a reputation as a nerd school. The fencing club here offers weekly beginners classes, for which we spend lots of our funds to hire a professional coach who is probably the best coach in the area. We charge only minimal club dues, and we only hit people up for that after they come a few times. We have enough equipment that beginners don't have to bring any of their own to fence with us. We send weekly e-mail reminders about practices and upcoming tournaments the day of or day before our practices. Yet for several weeks, our attendance at beginners' practices has been something like 2 beginners and 2 advanced fencers. We've tried organizing fencing movie nights at club officers' houses (with free food and a thinly veiled plug for free beer). We've tried putting on a one-touch epee tournament outdoors in the busiest area of campus on a weekday afternoon. Every year, though, our attendance drops from 15 regulars at the beginning of the year to half a dozen at the end of the year, and this year a lot lower than that.
So, does anyone have any crazy ideas we might not have thought of? How do we get more newbies to try us out, and stick with it longer?

[edew]

Reach outside the school boundaries for members, if the school allows you to do that. A fencer is a fencer. Doesn't have to be a student of the school.

[darius]

The school I coach at is fairly similar, and so was our club situation. A year ago, we attracted about 40 beginners, and kept exactly 2 beyond a semester.

First step was plastering campus with flyers, which had entertaining phrases, cool pictures, and bunches of contact info.

Second: we make sure it's a community. Fencing's an individual sport, and there are some *really* competitive people in our club, so we play a lot of team games as warm-ups -- variations on team handball and soccer, usually. That doesn't necessarily keep testosterone poisoning from being a factor, but it keeps everybody involved. Stretching together, going out for dinner and bull@#^% afterwards, catching movie premieres on Friday night -- we put a very high premium on making everybody, no matter what their competitive level, feel like part of a team.

Third: coaching. It's important that you put all your charisma up front. My roommate is a completely non-intimidating, 5'1" female epeeist, who's a stickler for footwork. But the guys like her because she's cute, and the girls like her because she's friendly, and a decent fencer. She whips beginners into shape without them realizing it, and if they last long enough to start working on more advanced stuff with the other coaches, they're tough enough to take the (constructive) criticism that they're going to get from the rest of us.

If you've got the manpower, give everybody as much individual instruction as possible. I tend to give private lessons as much as possible in lieu of drills, and then keep the people who aren't working with me bouting.

Fourth: Competition. We encourage it, provide all the gear everybody needs, and when our newbies are fencing, they will have a strip coach, unless there are no veterans available (we're all fencing). Afterwards at dinner, everybody has a good time, and the next practice, we make sure everybody's results get made known.

So far, the results have been dramatic. We've retained probably about 80% of our 15 beginners from September, and of those, 10 are competing regularly.

Also -- EDEW's point is well-made : we get students from other area colleges who want to fence at a higher level than their clubs permit, and have various folks who are faculty, postdocs at the local hospital, teenage epeeists, etc. They all add to the strength of the club, as well as the bottom line.

darius

[135711]

attrition is difficult also just because the course is difficult, some students of fencing 101 may have a preconceived notion that it's an easy sport and become discouraged. But, I think what edew was suggesting is to get your neighbors involved with fencing. Every campus is surrounded by a neighborhood, those people attend homecoming football games, are former students and so forth, many of them may have an interest in attending a class [some will go for continuing education, and others will jump right into the whole thing]. Not just another campus, but the neighborhood. It's a way of creating good bonds between the community and the school. Less problems evolve during rush when students party, the neighbors understand more about student life.

[Dan H]

There's some good feedback here so far - thanks! Unfortunately we practice in an access-restricted gym, so we can't recruit members from outside the university. There's not really a retention problem in the area in general; my local USFA club is thriving. It seems to be specific to the collegiate club.

[135711]

well, let's see; try to coach in a local highschool, get the hs students started and then recruit them into your college for college competition; if you start your kids off in freshman year, it's too late for them to do very much. they'll drop off after they compete with the locals who have more experience at nationals.

and also, i just realized, that maybe the college students you're teaching become unhappy because they're not in their birthplace. the tendancy for freshman to become fearful of the local population is very common, which in turn causes the campus to do things like, non-access driveways etc. It's to protect the student populations, but to the extent that you can't feel comfortable with your community, is dysfunctional.

[darius]

It's just not realistic to expect people to go to the college right in their hometown, at least not in the US of A.

Recruiting early is good -- we've got a fairly attractive website, and sometimes talk to visiting high-school seniors who are interested in fencing. (No varsity team == no NCAA regulations == They're free to attend a practice, and we can take them out to dinner afterwards...)

darius

[Inquartata]

I also fence at a university club whose room is in an
access-restricted facility ( student rec center ). There is provision for guest passes, however---does yours have a similar system? If so outside people might be willing to pay a nominal fee to fence, especially if as you say the coach there is the best to be had in the area...

[The_Claw]

they want to move up fast, it's not easy in fencing; it's individual skill; a team buddy is not going to be able to grap a ball and run with it for you and bring the entire team into national rankings; each person is ranked as an individual; it takes time to develop into a rated fencer; college is a 4 year program; that's why [pardon this is not a personal shot is is the deal], so many students continue in professional schools such as law/medicine later on, to continue their fencing.

[MikeHarm]

Cut the dues if people bring in new members to try it out. Talk with the students who stay and those who leave to find out things they're happy and unhappy with, and ask them for advice. If you can find students enthusiastic about expanding the club, they'll be your strongest asset for finding ways for your club to grow. Put posters up in the dorms, its a good place to attract studens.

[135711]

try not to think about it too much, you have your core group of students; try also getting your university to add fencing to their physical education department for one credit and you'll get about 20 new students each semester. put them in beginner outfits, and maybe 3 or 4 will decide to take more the next semester, then after one year, if they think about it, and want to take more classes, then they get the catelog from the teacher for buying their own stuff; they get a 'beginner' set or kit, weapon/jacket/mask/glove and they're ready for part the second, and that should tie in nicely with the lesson plan thread. first year first semester: footwork, conditioning, drills; the last 3 -4 weeks of class they get to hold a foil and do some organized drills; the second semester of the first year, they do the same but add more advanced drilling. This is the classical approach to fencing classes, and it works; the student takes lessons from the lead teacher, one per week in the beginning, later on, they can add one more lesson, if they do well after the 2nd year in competition, they add more individual training.

I learned how to make lesson plans from an introductory education class - sorry if it puts anyone to sleep [zzzz]